Stealth Alert: Project Hi-Fi

Project Hi-Fi is working on a “social networking website” that could “literally affect half the people in the United States,” according to regulatory filings and its website. The site says it is addressing a $100 billion market.The startup is the brain-child of CEO Steven Carpenter, a former strategy director at RealNetworks, who began to raise capital in June 2006. The company initially was seeking to raise $250,000, but upped its target to $1 million at the beginning of November. So far, it has raised $575,000.

Co-founder Doug Reed was an engineering manager at Intuits Quicken division before launching Project Hi-Fi. He may have been instrumental in attracting Thomas A. Proulx to the Hi-Fi board of directors. Proulx was the author of Quicken and co-founder of Intuit in 1983.

The stealth startup, based in San Francisco, is hiring. Just send a resume to jobs@projecthifi.com with the subject “Project Hi-Fi: Impossible Dream.”

Carpenter declined to comment on the company citing the need to keep it “under the radar” a little longer.